<p>What gives you the notion that there are relatively more "TAs" at Harvard than there are at Yale, or that they "teach classes" more frequently at Harvard than they do at Yale? This happens not to be true. </p>
<p>There is a very large group of TAs at Yale - many of whom, apparently, feel abused and overworked to the point where they are trying to unionize.</p>
<p>Here is an exerpt from a story in the Yale daily News for Dec. 15, 2004:</p>
<p>"TAs support union, according to GESO card count
University maintains stance that grad students are not employees</p>
<p>BY JULIE POST
Staff Reporter</p>
<p>About 60 percent of Yale's graduate teaching assistants who are teaching this semester support graduate student unionization, according to a Graduate Employees and Student Organization membership card count, the results of which were released at GESO's membership meeting Tuesday. The vote, however, did not sway University administrators, who said they would maintain a stance against graduate student unionization.</p>
<p>Although GESO officials would not release the vote totals from the 12-week membership card count Tuesday evening, Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz '83 confirmed the majority percentage at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday at a press event at First and Summerfield Methodist Church. She was joined by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal LAW '73, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr. -- all Democrats -- and Greater New Haven Central Labor Council President Robert Proto at the GESO announcement.</p>
<p>Bysiewicz's confirmation that a majority of graduate teaching assistants support unionization means that the University can opt to voluntarily recognize GESO as a union and begin bargaining with GESO over contract terms, GESO officials said.</p>
<p>But Yale President Richard Levin said a ruling last July by the National Labor Relations Board affirms the University's belief that graduate students are principally students and not statutory employees, and therefore have no legal right to form unions.</p>
<p>"The typical grad student teaches three or four semesters over five years," Levin said. "We regard their teaching experience as part of their training and education to pay professors."</p>
<p>Despite the NLRB's ruling that graduate student teaching assistants do not have employee status at private universities, graduate students and researchers at Columbia University joined Yale over the past 12 weeks in its efforts toward gaining union recognition through card count votes. Columbia's graduate student union organizers have also reached a majority in support of unionization, a statement released Tuesday by Columbia graduate student Shannon Clark said.</p>
<p>The membership cards that Bysiewicz counted were signed by those graduate teaching assistants who taught during the fall 2004 semester, Reynolds said. At the meeting, which she estimated was attended by more than 400 people, all GESO members, regardless of whether they are teaching this semester, were given the opportunity to sign membership cards, Reynolds said.</p>
<p>The number of graduate teaching assistants registered to teach for the fall 2004 semester was not available Tuesday evening. Only a limited number of the roughly 2,500 students who are currently enrolled in the Graduate School, including about 2,100 enrolled in the Ph.D. program, are teaching assistants, Yale Graduate School Dean Jon Butler said Tuesday.</p>
<p>While the time that students may serve as teaching assistants varies from program to program, Butler said, students in most of the humanities departments teach during their third or fourth year. Yale's median time it takes students to attain Ph.D.s in humanities programs is 7.2 years, according to the school's data."</p>